Former health secretary Jeanne Freeman has criticised Glasgow’s scandal-hit health board for spying on politicians and grieving families. 

According to reports on Sunday, health chiefs spent £15,000 a year to monitor the social media accounts of 31 MSPs as well as the widow of a patient who died in one of their hospitals.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) defended the practice of “social listening,” saying it played “a key role in issues management for companies and organisations worldwide by offering access to publicly available online and social conversations through perfectly legitimate and internationally accepted software companies that are used by tens of thousands of private and public sector organisations every day.”

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Speaking to BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show, Ms Freeman said the revelations had made her “really cross.” 

“I don't think as a health board, you actually need to monitor what people are saying about you on social media, if you talk to patients, relatives, staff, and listen to what they're saying.

“It was perfectly clear to me what people thought about Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board, not the staff, not the clinical staff, but about the board, and therefore the institution, when I was health secretary without having to monitor anybody's social media.”

She said the problem with the board’s approach was that it demonstrated “a significant defensiveness about it all.” 

“What the board should be doing is looking to win, nurture and earn respect and trust and this does not do that.” 

She was critical of NHSGCC’S statement: “I'm sorry, you're a public body, you're a health board. So you're not Coca-Cola, or Babcock, or anybody like that. You're not that. You're a public body. Most importantly, you're a health board. So that defence is not a defence.” 

Ms Freeman said the statement was an insight into the board’s defensiveness, “a view that we're not doing anything wrong, a view that anyone who says anything about us is being unfair and unkind, that is deeply unhelpful, and will do nothing to increase or even initiate public trust in what that board is doing.“

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Details of the scale of the social listening was obtained by the Sunday Mail through Freedom of Information. 

As well as the politicians, NHSGGC also confirmed it was monitoring three of its own staff with their permission as well as one member of the public - Louise Slorance.

The mum-of-five has been campaigning for answers about a number of deaths Glasgow's Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH), including her husband Andrew.

The former Scottish Government communications chief died in 2020 after contracting Covid while waiting for cancer treatment at the QEUH.

The hospital did not tell his family that he had also caught Aspergillus, a deadly infection while in their care. 

Ms Slorance believes this could have been linked to poor construction standards at the QEUH, and has long campaigned for answers around his death and the death of others. 

Chief executive Jane Grant said the spying against Ms Slorance was an "isolated incident." 

She said: "We have learned a lot of lessons here about pace and the need to be incredibly sensitive towards patients and families who have been bereaved."

Ms Freeman was scathing over the comment. 

“I'm sorry, you run a health board, you should have known that. Any decent human being wandering the streets knows the importance of being sensitive to grief, and bereavement. Of course you should.”

Labour leader Anas Sarwar, who was one of the politicians being monitored by the board, told the Sunday Mail: "This is yet another astonishing revelation from this scandalridden health board.

"Our NHS is at breaking point, but NHSGGC is spending taxpayer money spying on their own staff, bereaved families and on politicians raising concerns.

"This health board's leadership have shown time and time again that they are not willing to take responsibility for the awful tragedies that occurred on their watch.

"They will go to any lengths to try and cover up their catastrophic failures - they need to go."

The board was also monitoring SNP MSP Stuart McMillan. He has now contacted NHSGGC to ask why they were spying on him.

He told the paper: "As an elected member, I expect a level of scrutiny on my social media but it seems strange for a public body to be doing this proactively. I have written to NHSGCC for clarity on why monitoring was taking place.”

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NHSGGC said: "We can confirm that when the system was set up there were four accounts included, all of whom were frequent commentators about NHSGGC.

"These were the public social media accounts of Anas Sarwar, Jackie Baillie, Stuart McMillan and Paul O'Kane.

"On further review, we have removed all individuals from our automated social media monitoring including politicians."

The health board confirmed it had been paying private firm Meltwater £15,000 a year since April 20222 to keep track of what is being said about the organisation online.

It said: "It would be very costly and resource-intensive for us to have an overview of all conversations taking place on social media about NHSGGC manually.

"Social listening software enables an organisation to automate monitoring of social media content related to its activities and track these over time to establish public opinion trends.

"It is entirely legal and all social platforms have terms and conditions that social listening services must adhere to.

"Such software only monitors content which is publicly and freely available. It does not access social media accounts that have been marked by the owner/author as private.

"A limited number of the NHSGGC communications team are able to access an online dashboard to review interactions, mentions and posts about our organisation and services, based on a range of defined search terms.

"An automated notification in relation to set search terms is sent to members of the team on a daily basis."